


Where Are We?

by crystalsoulslayer



Category: In the Loop (2009), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dementia, F/M, I apologize in advance, Mental Health Issues, OH GOD WHY, why did i even write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:34:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalsoulslayer/pseuds/crystalsoulslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a long time for them to work out where they stand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Are We?

“Where are we, Malcolm?”

The first time she’d ever asked him, she genuinely hadn’t known. They were on a train, and she had fallen asleep in the seat across from him, and he told her they were nearly back to London. He remembered because it had also been the first time she had used his first name.

He thinks, _hopes_ , he’ll always remember that. No matter what else he loses.

~~~~~

“Where are we?”

It took him a moment to reply. They weren’t on a train this time. He frowned, considered her, then asked, “Have you taken a turn, love?”

She shook her head, and smiled, and asked again.

“Number Ten, Downing Street,” he’d replied. “In my office.”

“That’s right,” she had said. “ _Your_ office. I know that because of the little thingy on the door, and this is all your shit lying around.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“It’s _your_ office. Not Nicholson’s. Not that useless prick from DOSA, whatever his name is. Not even the PM’s. If they want in, they’ve got to ask you, haven’t they? Because it’s your name on the door.”

And that was when he remembered – he did enough. They were not entitled to him. They could fucking knock and take turns from then on.

“Thanks, Sam.”

~~~~-

“Malcolm, where are you?”

His throat hurt too much to reply, so he just shivered in his own sweat, feeling as pathetic as a limp dick on a porno set, wondering what she was doing here. She’d never been to his house before. When she saw him, clearly in a bad way, she had ranted magnificently about several things, most notably the fact that he shouted too goddamn much and didn’t fucking get enough vitamin shitting C. (That was what got him started with the fruit.)

And then she had _stayed_. She had taken care of him. No one had taken care of him since before his mum passed, since the mumps when he was a kid. She had made him chicken soup in a mug, and made him eat it all, and then chosen a Doctor Who DVD at random and put it in for him. And she sat with him and watched it, too, laughed at all the right bits, and he watched her watching it until he fell asleep.

 ~~~ -

“Where are we?” she asked softly, rubbing at the line of tension along his shoulders with the heel of her hand. His back was to her, bent in a sort of half-crouch, face in the corner. He had been pacing, or trying to pace, earlier. She thought he did that when he was trying not to cry of frustration. After that, he usually threatened to kill the nearest living being.

He frowned and swayed where he stood, and gave her the hotel’s street address. She could see his face in the mirror. He looked confused.

“No, Malcolm. Where are we?”

And he gave her the hotel’s address again, and it was the party conference, did she forget? She asked again. It took him almost a full minute to come up with the right answer. He was breathing too fast, and it was loud in the tiny space.

“Lift.”

“That’s right. We’re in the lift, on the thirtieth floor. And they’re all down there, okay? They can’t see you.”

That seemed to help, so she continued.

“They can’t hear you, and you don’t have to hear them. It’s okay. They aren’t here.” She took his hand gently and led him down the hall, swiped the keycard for him, tugged him inside. He protested when she started ushering him out of his jacket, but she just booped his nose and told him he was too ancient and stressed to get a worthwhile erection, so there was to be no funny business.

He huffed out a laugh and did as she said after that, until he was just in his shirtsleeves and boxers and socks, and clambered into bed. She talked him down until he stopped trembling with pent-up rage and frustration and fear and contempt, and made him tea.

She was the most soothing person he’d ever met.

~~ --

“Malcolm, where are we?”

He trembled under her hands and managed to force out the first few numbers of his home address.

“No, love, where are we? Tell me.”

He thought about the lift, and suggested, “Bed?”

“Close.”

He couldn’t think of anything, so she leaned down and kissed him, slow and thorough and deep, until he melted into it, until the trembling stopped, and then he had an answer, through thin-swollen lips.

“ _Together_.”

“Right.”

She’d adjusted herself for another kiss, and found him hard against her thigh. She reached for it, and he stilled her hands.

“What if they find out?”

“Fuck them. Well, okay, don’t, actually. I’d be dead jealous.”

He laughed, really laughed, his eyes twinkling, panic attack forgotten. And he let her hands wander where they would, and pulled her down for another kiss.

~- -

“Where are we, Malcolm?”

He didn’t answer her.

She had thought he was faking, at first, that it was part of his labyrinthine scheme to keep himself out of prison. But the truth, though she was too scared to admit it, was that it had started before that. It wasn’t that he was losing his political touch; his acumen, in that regard, was as sharp as ever.

It was just that he would forget, sometimes, what he’d done and what he had yet to do. Who he had to call, what he had to tell them. She usually knew, and would remind him, gently, and he’d call himself something _incredibly_ offensive, and get on with it.

But it was getting harder and harder to follow his machinations.

And then he started misspeaking, would talk about Tom instead of Dan, would ask what that semi-senile lizard fucker Hugh had done now, would be halfway on his way to Downing Street before he remembered he was in the opposition.

And then, one day, he didn’t remember, and turned up at Downing Street, and then figured out he wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d covered magnificently, something about lending them the extra bullocks they clearly needed (in fact, he could take a dump on the PM’s desk and provide them with the necessary help, but he didn’t think they deserved the elevated _fucking_ status that would bring). She rode with him in the mornings after that.

Maybe he hadn’t heard her. “Where are we, darling?”

He looked at her, and shook his head, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

And that’s when she knew for sure he wasn’t faking.

~

“Where are we, Sam?”

She loops her arms around him – he’s still skinny as a fucking anorexic beanpole – and murmurs, “This is our house, Malcolm. In Glasgow.”

“Our house?”

“Ours.”

“…Together?”

“Always.”

He lets her hold him in silence for a bit, then turns in her arms and kisses her. And then he frowns. “I don’t remember it.”

“What?”

“The trial. What happened?”

“They found you _non compos mentis._ There was no trial.”

“Oh.” He seemed happy about that. “What did they say I did?”

“They said you leaked a depression patient’s medical records, to make the opposition look bad for trying to discredit him. And then lied about it.”

He’s silent, frowning, for a long time, and then he says softly, “I don’t remember that. It doesn’t… _sound_ like something I’d do.” He looks down at her, and the confusion in his eyes breaks her heart. “Did I? Did I do it?”

She remembers passing him the folder. She remembers giving him a kiss on the cheek afterward, because she knew he had his reasons. And she remembers when he lied to the inquiry, when he said he couldn’t recall. A lie at first, and now it’s true. And she takes the truth that ought to have been and makes it into a lie, lies to him effortlessly, because she has to, because he trusts her _not_ to.

“No, Malcolm. You didn’t.”


End file.
